Teatime
by the Unrequited Lover
Summary: It would have been a fine afternoon had her dear friend's computer not crashed. Is she really counting on Dorian Gray to cheer her up? Oh, dear Lord. Like that's ever going to happen!


_On Sunday, the 27th of February 2005, this was in my mail box from my fellow author and good friend SilverFlover: _

"_Good afternoon! I'm sending this frm Márton's computer, since mine wouldn't work, I have no idea why though! I suppose my windows system collapsed or whatever! Hopefully it'll be repaired by tomorrow, if not, then I'll really kick someone's a! Ah well, sorry, I'm just a bit pissed off that I couldn't read today's mail from my other mailbox! And I couldn't re-read your script either..gah! TT and that we won't be able to talk :bursts out crying: anyway, I hope you had a better day than I had...but it was nice of Márton to let me use his computer, wasn't it? Well I really hope I will be able to catch you tomorrow in the evening, we would have a lot to talk over! Have a nice evening, and give my regards to Dorian! love: Gica "_

_I then composed this reply to her._

Sarrin glared at the computer angrily. It wasn't the computer she was angry at—she'd once been told never to hate the messenger, just the message—but rather, the words blinking at her from the screen. "Isn't that just perfect," muttered the girl, kicking herself back from the computer desk and folding her arms across her chest as her wheeled chair rolled away from the computer for a while.

From where he sat in a large armchair, his arm legs resting on the table in front of him carelessly, Dorian Gray looked over at the lass. He took a drink of his tea, then turned to her.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked, not particularly interested, but rather, quite bored. Dorian Gray did not take boredom well.

"What do you think?" came the reply. He frowned at that. He could not see Sarrin's face from where she sat, as her back was to him, but she didn't sound happy, and when she was unhappy, she usually would not let him be happy. Dorian put his cup down and stood, straightening his jacket. "I think," he began, as he walked over to her, "that there's something wrong with one of your emails." He spun the chair around so that she faced him. Yes, there was a sulk on her face. He should've known.

Sarrin sighed and stood, walking past him and sitting on the footrest he'd been using moments before. "Yeah...there's something wrong with Gica's computer. She can't check her email, and...I can't talk to her today." She looked up, her mouth pouting.

"Gica..." Dorian echoed, trying to remember who that was.

"Yeah, you know," Sarrin said, fiddling with her hair, which was pulled back in a hair tie, "ex- fellow-bride?" The reference was to her previous marriage to Vladislaus Dracula, and the startling discovery that she was not the only bride. After a while, little Sarrin divorced the count, and that was when Dorian and she had met.

"Oh, yes.." Dorian remembered. That was Dracula's bride. Dracula and he...did not get along particularly well. Then the lad frowned. "If that's so, how did she manage to write you?"

"Márton let her use his computer," Sarrin replied listlessly. "Nice of him, isn't it?"

"Quite nice," Dorian replied, and lay down in the chair, his back against one armrest and his legs dangling over the other. "Hand me my tea?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sarrin said, rolling her eyes at him, giving him the cup. "You're welcome," she added, after he'd taken a drink.

He nodded his head, and she poked him with her fingertip. "You're some help," she said, upset. "I'm having a crisis and you're drinking tea!"

It's..." he started, then shook his head. "Never mind, then." She poked him again, and he drank the last of his tea before turning to her.

"See? Finished the tea."

"Well, now I'm having a crisis and you're not drinking tea."

"Would you like some?"

"Tea?" Sarrin scoffed, disbelieving.

Dorian shrugged. "I thought..."

"You thought wrongly," she said, each syllable heavy with accusation he knew she wanted him to feel rather than actually felt herself. "I'm miserable, and I'll bet Gica is, too."

"You know," Dorian said, sitting in the chair properly, "you're being quite disagreeable today. It's quite like a miserable person, you know, to insist on everyone else being miserable."

"And it's quite like you, Dorian Gray," she retorted, "to insist on being quite cheerful when everyone else is miserable."

He laughed and she shook her head. "My point exactly..."

"Well, you can't expect me to be as upset as you," Dorian said. "I'm not as close to her."

"She said, at the end, 'Have a nice evening-'"

"See? You're not having a nice evening at all," interrupted Dorian, raising his eyebrows with an amused smile.

Sarrin, irritated at the interruption, ignored him and continued,

"'Have a nice evening and give my regards to Dorian.'"

There was silence as the petulant boy tried to regain his composure and line of thought.

"She said that?" he asked, finally.

"Yes."

There was another pause.

"Well...all right, I'll try to be miserable, too, then," Dorian said, feeling, in fact, a bit unhappy that he'd been inconsiderate the moment before.

Sarrin looked at Dorian's face- now he was the one pouting, and not she- and could not help but laugh.

"Sarrin!" Dorian protested. "How like you to convince me to be unhappy when you are, and, now that I've become unhappy, you cheer up?"

Sarrin shook her head, wanting to tell him that's not why she was laughing, but she couldn't stop herself, and she kept laughing.

Dorian looked highly affronted and folded his arms, slumping in the seat and crossing his legs, refusing to talk to her.

"You're being childish, you know," Sarrin said finally, after recovering.

"Go away," Dorian said dully, and looked away from her.

"Oh, Dorian," she breathed, exasperated with his display of immaturity.

"I'm not talking to you."

She laughed again and got up. She felt like making some tea.


End file.
